Sciency Goodness
I recently did a scientific experiment for school. Here it is. I thought you guys might want a post. Its a bit dry but the results may be interesting to you.ABSTRACT
In this experiment, students were exposed to different classifications of music while taking a test. This test focused on the students' abilities to do simple math and recall information within a few seconds of reading it. (The researcher refers to this as "immediate memory recall.") The tests used were generated almost randomly from a template by the researcher.
Mistakes were made during the testing, and the results produced are thusly not totally trustworthy, but they appear to show that music classified as Punk Rock retarded the students trying to take the test and that Heavy Metal and Mozart will retard you to about the same degree if you listen to it while doing basic math or immediate memory recall. They however don't retard very much. From this, the researcher deduces that there is absolutely no Mozart effect. Music by The Beatles has almost no retarding effect when compared to silence.
INTRODUCTION
At least since the creation of music, people have held to the notion that music influences a person. This has manifested in a multitude of ideas ranging from the malignant effects, to the helpful ones. People believe that Mozart’s music can make a person smarter and that rock or certain other types of music will make you stupid and violent. (The American Enterprise, 1999) Some music is even believed to make people suicidal. (Ryan, 1999)
But the reader may wonder, “How true can this be?" That is also what the researcher wondered. A person may ponder, “Is my music making me violent?” A considerable amount of research has been done on this subject, but the researcher who wrote this paper hopes that he can make a contribution to the science of music.
The researcher did tests on four different classifications of music and a fifth test with no sound to see its effect on the speed at which people could do simple memory recall and incredibly basic math. For this experiment, music was played while students of ages ranging from 15 to 18 years old took tests and were timed. The tests were generated by hand from a template that resulted in tests being essentially the same with little more than random numbers and words replaced.
The researcher believed that that the results of this experiment would show that all music, regardless of its classification would result in slower speeds on the test than silence because music is distracting. The researcher did not believe that the different types of music would result in this effect being increased or lessened.
METHODS AND MATERIALS
For this experiment, music was needed. The researcher believed it to be important to choose music that was archetypal to its genre. This was chosen by the researcher and while some may debate the researcher’s choices, he stands by them. (For a list of music used, see APPENDIX B.) The researcher chose to test Punk Rock, Heavy Metal, music by the Beatles and music by Mozart.
Mozart was selected for experimentation because the idea of the Mozart effect (Campbell, 2002) sounds implausible to the researcher and testing it would make this experiment interesting to anyone who believed in the Mozart effect.
Punk Rock and Heavy Metal were chosen because there is a popular belief that the genres’ fast-paced and often angry rhythms make people violent. These kinds of music also are often held in a low regard by some music connoisseurs as being rudimentary and low-grade.
The Beatles’ music was chosen because it has been popular for a number of decades. Many people hold their entire discography in a tremendously positive regard. It has in the past influenced a wide variety of people including Charles Manson (Bugliosi et al., 1995)
For the testing, volunteers were gathered into a room where they were told the entire procedure. The students were exposed to the music at a consistent volume for two and a half minutes. The volume was, according to the CD-player, 80 decibels. However, this is not accurate because the sound on the CDs was recorded at different volumes and actually varied a lot. During the play of some songs, students complained of inability to hear music and during others, they complained that the music was too loud to be comfortable. Naturally, the researcher is aware this has probably impacted the results in some way.
The test-takers were told that the accuracy with which they answered questions would be evaluated when in reality it was not. The tests were designed to be so easy that the test-takers would not get the questions wrong. All that mattered when tests were being evaluated was the speed at which they were completed.
The tests were generated from a basic template created by the researcher as outlined in APPENDIX A, but the individual numbers and lists of words were different generally. Each classification of music had a different test that all test subjects would take.
Portion 1 of the test was analyzed by the researcher, but Portions 2 and 3 were not. The reasoning behind this is that the tests are designed to be easy and there is little chance of error on the part of the test-taker. The researcher believes that the only thing actually affected by the music is the speed at which test is completed.
Tests were timed by having a clock in front of everyone who was being tested. At the start of each test, the researcher noted the start time. When the individual test subjects finished their tests, they wrote the time they finished on the front of their test. The researcher calculated the time in seconds that it took each student to complete their test when he was evaluating the completed tests.
RESULTS
The Beatles
Age Liked Music Time to Completion (In Seconds)
17 Yes 235
15 Yes 133
16 Yes 65
16 Yes 138
16 Yes 165
18 No 160
15 No 85
15 Yes 80
16 Yes 80
15 Yes 105
16 Yes 120
17 Yes 110
Punk
Age Liked Music Time to Completion (In Seconds)
16 Yes 250
16 No 240
15 No 245
17 No 254
18 No 228
16 Yes 240
17 No 225
16 Yes 210
15 No 240
16 No 240
15 No 260
16 No 157
Heavy Metal
Age Liked Music Time to Completion (In Seconds)
17 No 155
15 Yes 185
16 No 195
16 Yes 75
16 No 175
16 No 165
15 No 175
16 No 160
15 No 100
15 No 95
18 No 90
Mozart
Age Liked Music Time to Completion (In Seconds)
16 No 60
17 No 190
16 No 205
15 No 160
16 No 215
16 No 210
17 No 132
16 No 146
15 No 120
18 No 125
15 No 132
Control (Silence)
Age Liked Music Time to Completion (In Seconds)
17 N/A 172
16 N/A 167
15 N/A 122
15 N/A 72
16 N/A 127
15 N/A 177
16 N/A 88
16 N/A 119
15 N/A 57
16 N/A 107
18 N/A 117
It simply must be noted though, that these results are not completely trustworthy. Some errors were made during the testing.
The researcher was in the beginning stages of illness during experimentation and recorded a lot of obviously incorrect information. Fortunately, thanks to certain students' help some of this was able to be rectified and the proper information was eventually recorded.
Examples of some of these things were that tests were mislabeled as to what music classifications corresponded to which tests and the start time for the Mozart test was recorded as being eleven minutes before the test actually started.
Students taking the test were often uncooperative and failed to follow instructions. Some tests had to be discarded as a result of this. The times recorded for completion are often wrong because the test subjects would forget to mark times on their tests and then ask for the tests back so that they could write their finish times on them. The times written are then guesses rather than actual times. Many people rounded their finish times to the nearest five second increment.
Answers to the question, "Do you like the music that is currently playing?" were often vague, indecisive things such as "sorta" and "kind of." These were changed in the above results to "No."
In the Mozart test, one question was missing. This question was meant to have the test subject add three two digit numbers.
DISCUSSION
The results would appear to show that all music provides at least a little bit of distraction. However, different classifications of music provided different levels of distraction. This was different from the researcher's hypothesis. What was especially interesting to the researcher was that The Beatles' music generated times almost the same as those for Silence. However, this might be due to the fact that The Beatles' music was tested last and some of the test subjects had claimed to have "figured out the pattern" to the tests and said that that they were easier afterward. What this would mean is that the tests might not actually show anything about music's influence on people's abilities. However, the researcher does not feel like this is likely because not all the results show such phenomena.
They do seem to show that Punk Rock has a negative effect on people's ability to think quickly while Heavy Metal seems not to affect people nearly as much.
The researcher also feels it worth noting that the Mozart effect didn't manifest itself in the experiment and actually, when played, resulted in a time that was longer than Heavy Metal's.
CONCLUSION
The researcher would encourage not listening to music while working on any project that requires a significant amount of thought. This is because even the Beatles which averaged only three seconds of difference from silence produced a slower test score than silence. if the test were to be longer and proportional in the resulting time spent taking the test, those three seconds could become three minutes or even three hours of productivity lost.
The researcher, though, feels like the results cannot actually be trusted due to the quantity of flaws in them. He feels though that given the time and budget, the experiment could be redone in a more accurate way with results that actually reflect reality honestly.
LITERATURE CITED
PROOF! MODERN ART MAKES YOU STUPID. The American Enterprise 10.3 (May 1999): 12. Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. Remote Access. 20 February 2006
Ryan, Suzy. UNLEASHING THE SAVAGE WITHIN. The American Enterprise 10.4 (July 1999): 17. Expanded Academic ASAP. Thomson Gale. Remote Access. 20 February 2006
Campbell, Don. The Mozart Effect. Share Guide (Nov-Dec 2002): 20(2). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Remote Access. 20 February 2006
Bugliosi, Vincent, with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. Bantam Books, 1995.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The researcher would like to thank Mrs. Nabers Johnson for her continuous help in the planning of the experiment and for her help in formatting the final paper in preparation for submission to the VJAS.
The researcher would like to thank Doctor Paul Gresser for the use of his classroom and class time on Wednesday September Fifteenth to administer the test to his students.
The researcher would like to thank Mr. John Heddleston for the permission to use of his classroom and class time even though these things turned out to be unnecessary as the test was conducted in Doctor Paul Gresser's classroom.
The researcher would like to thank his mother for the use of her library card when the researcher could not find his own.
The researcher would finally like to thank the students who he used as test subjects for despite their incredible inability to follow directions, were a vital component to this experiment.
APPENDIX A:
Concerning the test:
The test consisted of three Portions.
Portion 1: Personal Information
Questions were as follows:
1. What is your name?
2. What is your age?
3. What grade are you in?
4. What is your favorite genre of music?
5. Do you like the song that is currently playing.
Portion 2: Math
Questions followed this format:
There were two addition problems:
1. Add three randomly selected 2-digit numbers.
2. Add two randomly selected 4-digit numbers.
Then two multiplication problems:
3. Multiply two 1-digt numbers.
4. Multiply two 2-digit numbers.
and finally, a long-division problem:
5. Divide a 2-digit number by a 1-digit number. Solve to a remainder, not a percentage.
Portion 3: Immediate Short-Term Memory.
Questions will follow this format:
1. & 2. There was a random number of randomly selected words. Then the test-taker was asked where in the list a certain word was placed, i.e.
cat, bag, armpit, metal, rock
What word came 4th?
3. & 4. Prose described three objects in spatial relation to each other. The test-taker was asked what relationship two of the objects have:
The clock is above the statue. The statue is to the left of the book. What is to the right of the statue?
5. The question was much like 1. But instead of being simply asked what came [number]-th, the test-taker will be asked, what came [number] words before word number [number].
Computer, sword, bottle, pillow, window, cookie, coffee What came four words before the fifth word?
APPENDIX B:
Music Used:
The music for each classification was put on CDs. Each genre was relegated to a separate CD-R that the researcher burned using the Windows version of iTunes.
Heavy Metal:
1. Iron Maiden - The Trooper
2. Megadeth - Peace Sells
3. Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Comin'
4. Anthrax - Madhouse
5. N. R. G. - Instruments of Destruction
Punk Rock:
1. Bad Religion - Sinister Rouge
2. NoFX - Linoleum
3. Social Distortion - It's the Law
4. Daycare Swindlers - Rambo Cop
5. The Offspring - Not the One
The Beatles:
1. A Hard Day's Night
2. Help!
3. Ticket to Ride
4. Paperback Writer
5. Yellow Submarine
6. For No One
7. Drive My Car
8. Nowhere Man
Mozart:
For Mozart, the researcher did something slightly different and a commercial CD was used for the experiment:
Masters of Classical Music Vol. 1
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
reproduced by LaserLight Digital
posted by the magnificent Cy "Brazanthr" Parker @ 6:35 PM
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